Stefan's Florilegium

warfare-msg

warfare-msg - 1/31/92

Period warfare.

NOTE: See also the files: Women-Battle-art, wounds-msg, siege-engines-msg,
mercenaries-msg, battle-ideas-msg, pottery-wepns-msg, p-armor-msg.

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NOTICE -

This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that
I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some
messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday.

This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium.
These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org

I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with
seperate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes
extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were
removed to save space and remove clutter.

The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I
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Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these
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Thank you,
Mark S. Harris AKA: Lord Stefan li Rous
mark.s.harris@motorola.com stefan@florilegium.org
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From: jvincent@eagle.wesleyan.edu (The Ulair)
Date: 25 Sep 91 20:12:09 GMT
Organization: Wesleyan University

Greetings to the Rialto from Eirik Bjarnason!

Recently, one good gentle inquired as to the size of armies
during our lives. I shall present the results I have found in the works of
the learned clerk J.F.Verbruggen in his "The Art of Warfare in Western Europe
During the Middle Ages". The figures cited are for the First Crusade and
the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Date Battle #of Knights #of foot-soldiers
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
1098 Battle of The Lake of Antioch 700 -------
Battle of Antioch (500-600) -------
1099 Ascalon 1,200 9,000
1101 Ramla 260 900
1102 Ramla 200 ------
1102 Jaffa 200
1105 Ramla 700 2,000
1119 Athareb 700 3,000
1119 Hab 700
1125 Hazarth 1,100 2,000

Also, at Bremule Louis VI fought Henry I {then Duke of Normandy} with
400 to 500 knights, respectively. In 1217, the English King used 400 knights
and 347 crossbowmen against his rebellious barons, who had 611 knights and
1,000 foot soldiers.

As additional evidence that such forces were small, feudal rolls and documents
show that in Normandy in 1172 only 581 knights had to be raised for the Duke's
army from 1,500 fiefs. In Brittany in 1294, 166 knights and 16 squires were
obliged to perform military service for the Duke.
Hopefully soon, I will have an analysis of major battles of
the Hundred Years' War completed.
Additional comments or requests are welcome. I hope this will
help shed some small illumination on the nature of battles during our time.

Yours in Service,

Eirik Bjarnason
Haven's End
Barony of Dragonship Haven
East Kingdom

From: sbloch@euler.ucsd.edu (Steve Bloch)
Date: 28 Sep 91 16:41:21 GMT
Organization: Mathematics @ UCSD

jvincent@eagle.wesleyan.edu (The Ulair) lists some sample army sizes
from the time of the First Crusade, the largest example by far being
the Battle of Ascalon, with 1200 knights and 9000 grunts.

I would point out that Compleat Anachronist #56 gives a similar list
for major battles of the Byzantine empire, and the numbers there are
an order of magnitude larger, the largest being the Battle of Amorium
(year 838) with a total 170,000 troops in the field.

--
Stephen Bloch
mar-Joshua ibn-Eleazar ha-Shalib
>sca>Caid>Calafia>St.Artemas
sbloch@math.ucsd.edu

Date: Wed, 20 Nov 91 00:06 EDT
From: JRECHTSCHAFF@hamp.hampshire.edu
Subject: Numbers at Crecy

Greetings to Rialto,
A few digests ago, a gentle posted that there were 20,000 crossbowmen
at the battle of Crecy in 1346. According to Alfred Burne in his book
_The Crecy War_, there were about 6,000 crossbowmen, the French army as
a whole at the battle totalled around 40,000. (p175-76). The crossbowmen
were placed in a terrible position and were caught between the English
archers and cannon and the French knights who rode them down from behind.
It did not help that the Count d'Alencon, brother of King Philip VI, suspected
the crossbowmen were traitors (they were actually fleeing from the English
arrows) and ordered his division to ride them down. Needless to say, the
crossbowmen (Genoese mercanaries) started attacking the French in self-
defense. Alecon was killed in the Fray. The English army, by the way,
numbered around 12,000 to 13,000 (Crecy War p.170).

Reference: Alfred H. Burne _The Crecy War_ (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1955)
In Service,
Lyanna ferch Gwynhelek of Bergental
Barony of Bergental EK

24 Jan 92
From: kleber@husc10.harvard.edu (Gwydden "Galen" ap Hafgan)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Organization: Harvard University Science Center

Quoth Dave.Aronson@f120.n109.z1.FidoNet.Org (Dave Aronson):

>I have a question about the oil that was heated or set afire and then
>poured from battlements onto attackers. What SORT of oil was it
>usually? Mineral? Vegetable? Animal? Please be as specific as
>possible. Ten queue.

According to my high school history teacher (well, *I* consider her
authoritative... :-), that's another of those "false facts"-- no castle
in its right mind would have poured precious oil over the walls just to
scald enemies. Especially if you're under seige, you want all your resources
conserved-- and boiling the old laundry water might not get as hot, but it
sure don't hurt any less, and there's a whole lot more of it!

--Gwydden ("Galen") ap Hafgan I don't have an overactive
Provost of the Borough of Duncharloch imagination... I have an
--kleber@husc.harvard.edu underactive reality... --EG

25 Jan 92
From: dani@netcom.COM (Dani Zweig)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)

Dave.Aronson@f120.n109.z1.FidoNet.Org (Dave Aronson):
>I have a question about the oil that was heated or set afire and then
>poured from battlements onto attackers. What SORT of oil was it usually?
>Mineral? Vegetable? Animal? Please be as specific as possible.

Not as specific as I'd prefer but... Pouring *burning* oil would be
hideously expensive, and not very practical. Oil heated to the boiling
point (any sort would do, but in practice it's going to be vegetable)
is still too expensive to be a routine ploy, but it could be highly
effective in restricted emergency situations. (If you've ever been
spattered by a single drop of hot oil, you'll know that it's distracting.)

-----
Dani of the Seven Wells
dani@netcom.com

26 Jan 92
From: bill@psych.toronto.edu (Bill Pusztai)
Organization: Dept. of Psychology, University of Toronto

Greetings and Blessings to all assembled.

on 20 Jan 1992 Dave.Aronson@f120.n109.z1.FidoNet.Org (Dave Aronson) wrote:
/I have a question about the oil that was heated or set afire and then
/poured from battlements onto attackers. What SORT of oil was it
/usually? Mineral? Vegetable? Animal? Please be as specific as
/possible. Ten queue.

As far as I know, oil was only ever used *cold*, to cause
slippage, and then rarely, due to expense (somewhere in my
library is reference to two large jars of olive oil being a
year's wages for an unskilled labourer).

What WAS used was heated sand - reputedly, first deployed against
Alexander the Great during his siege of one of the hilltop cities
on his way to India.

The method was to fill a vessel with sand (the ladles and beakers
and crucibles from foundries were used) and bake it in the brick
ovens for about half of one watch (say, 4 hours), until it glowed
cherry red (about cone 012, 850 C, 1500 F - only sand that was
nearly pure silica would take this treatment, any impurities
would tend to lower its fusing point -that is, it would melt). It
was then poured over invaders. Besides causing casualties
directly, it also set flammables afire. It's use occasioned the
same kind of consternation that napalm would today - indeed, they
are similar in effect (thoroughly horrid).

May God Bless and Keep you. Your servant,

Fra. Capricornus

26 Jan 92
From: viking@iastate.edu (Dan Sorenson)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA

>Dave.Aronson@f120.n109.z1.FidoNet.Org (Dave Aronson):
>>I have a question about the oil that was heated or set afire and then
>>poured from battlements onto attackers. What SORT of oil was it usually?
>>Mineral? Vegetable? Animal? Please be as specific as possible.

I would suspect it of being animal oil heated to the boiling point,
mainly because I believe this to be the cheapest and most easily obtainable
oil one could find inside a seiged castle.

I do wonder at the very idea, though. Boiling waste water may as
well have been used, as well as any other fluid one could boil. The idea
was to distract, right? Why use oil when simple water would work just as
well and be much cheaper for a beseiged castle to afford?

Boiling honey is much worse than boiling oil, by the way, in that
it sticks like napalm and burns almost as badly. If a castle had an ample
supply this may have been used, but as a sugar source it was probably too
valuable to waste pouring on attackers. Better the remains of the stew
or the rancid milk nobody wanted to drink yesterday.

<============================================================<Dan Sorenson,
z1dan@exnet.iastate.edu, aka viking@iastate.edu Dod #1066>
<If you think I speak for anybody else, you and I should get together...>
< Erik Aarskog, Canton of Axed Root, located somewhere in Calontir >
<============================================================

28 Jan 92
From: cav@bnr.ca (Rick Cavasin)
Organization: Bell-Northern Research Ltd.
Reply-To: cav@bnr.ca (Rick Cavasin)

Unto the good folk of the Rialto does Balderik send his greetings.

Regarding burning oil, those having access to the technology
would undoubtedly use Greek fire. As this was a closely guarded
secret, it may not have been available outside Byzantium.

Burning pitch seems to ring a bell in my memory. This again would
have an effect like napalm, and might be somewhat cheaper than
various oils. No doubt a certain amount could be stored in
a castle for the purpose of defense.

Regards,
Balderik

30 Jan 92
From: 72007.302@compuserve.COM (Clayton Neff)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Organization: The Internet

To: >INTERNET:SCA@mc.lcs.mit.edu

Fujimoto writes:

> Dave Aronson asks what sort of oil was poured onto attackers of a castle.
>
> If I recall correctly, pouring oil onto attackers was mostly a
> Hollywood invention; you wouldn't waste good oil that way.
>
> On the other hand, you wouldn't mind wasting, say, chamber pot
> contents on an attacker...this had the advantage that the attackers,
> if they got in, could be immediately located.... ;-)
>
> Erik suggests boiling water, which seems unlikely for the same reason
> that heated honey seems unlikely. You would NOT waste your limited
> water supply that way, because if you ran out of water, you had to
> surrender anyway. (Of course, if you had an unlimited water supply,
> say like those castles on small rivers and what, then it's feasible).
>

When touring the castle at Conwy in Wales, our tour guide walked us through
as if we were attacking it. After getting inside the city walls, crossing
the dry moat, hacking our way through the drawbridge, crossing the next
dry moat, and figthing our way through the first killing passage, we stood
in the courtyard still outside the castle proper. (Realistically no one
would have made it that far, as the obstacles were all but insurrmountable.)

Here he pointed to the battlements and described the wooden platforms that
were there in period, and he described the holes there would have been in
the floors of them. He then proceeded to debunk the myths about boiling
oil, lead, and water, for much the same reasons as have already been stated.
What he said they did use, which was in large supply in castles in period was
pitch. They would heat the pitch until it became liquid, and then pour it
through the holes, setting it on fire with a torch as it went. This was an
effective equivalent for naplam, as it stuck to whatever it touched and
continued to burn. Very nasty stuff.

The rest of the defenses of the castle were also _very_ impressive, and I
wasn't surprised when he said the castle had never been taken by force.

-- Logan --

Duncan Bruce of Logan Clayton Neff
Forgotten Sea, Calontir Kansas City, MO

Re: burning oil poured from castletops
31 Jan 92
From: trifid@agora.uucp (Roadster Racewerks)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Organization: Open Communications Forum

Both pitch and lead were commonly used in repair around the castle. Pitch for
caulking and preserving rope, and lead for repair of roofs. There was also
the rendered fat of the animals slaughtered to feed the garrison. In at least
one case a plague victim was catapaulted into the enemy ranks by the dying
opposition, and more than one injured or dead horse, mule, or ox made the
same abrupt trip... Castles had an opening in the ceiling of the gate area,
called, aptly, a "murder hole", where once the intruders got past the first
defense they could be pinned in the entry, and hot pitch, large stones, spears
and arrows could be rained down...whatever was lying around the house, so to
speak. (Beams could be shoved behind the entry to block retreat, and often
the drawbridge was arranged to slam them into this small space. Or some had a
pit they were dumped into, and when it was lowered afterward, they were
crushed by the counterweight. Very effective...)

NicMaoilan

<the end>